In my mind, they are illegal immigrants - no different than those who cross the Mexican border in the US. They may have already been illegally in the US, but two wrongs don't make a right...what about the legitimate refugees, immigrants and citizens?

Illegal immigrant = an undocumented person living 'covertly' in a country.

The people crossing the border are not undocumented, and they're certainly not trying to be covert; If officers are not waiting at the border, it's often the asylum-seekers themselves who call the RCMP.

This isn't a new phenomenon in Canada. On average, 11 000 refugees successfully make claims within Canada. What difference is it if they arrive by car rather than by plane?

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I've always struggled with reality. And I'm pleased to say that I won.

Illegal immigrant = an undocumented person living 'covertly' in a country.

The people crossing the border are not undocumented, and they're certainly not trying to be covert; If officers are not waiting at the border, it's often the asylum-seekers themselves who call the RCMP.

This isn't a new phenomenon in Canada. On average, 11 000 refugees successfully make claims within Canada. What difference is it if they arrive by car rather than by plane?

In any event, in many cases wouldn't the simple fact that you're a "refugee" (eg in a desperate, dangerous situation) preclude you from following every single procedural step and doing so in advance within the ideal timeframes?

If that weren't the case, you wouldn't be a "refugee", you'd be an "immigrant".

Illegal immigrant = an undocumented person living 'covertly' in a country.

The people crossing the border are not undocumented, and they're certainly not trying to be covert; If officers are not waiting at the border, it's often the asylum-seekers themselves who call the RCMP.

This isn't a new phenomenon in Canada. On average, 11 000 refugees successfully make claims within Canada. What difference is it if they arrive by car rather than by plane?

And the USA isn't in the middle of a civil war, it is a safe country. If they leave for Canada from a neighbouring safe country they are not refugees. They are economic migrants, and illegal. Send them all back.

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"It's called an American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it"
-George Carlin

I think the federal government must do more to enforce our borders and prevent people from running into canada to escape Trumps America. This is getting ridiculous, I don't even like Trump but he's certainly not the New Hitler. These people will survive.

It's not Canada's responsibility to accept all of the worlds refugees and displaced individuals, the poverty rate in this country is 13% and income inequality is rising rapidly, we should fix our own problems before trying to fix the worlds problems.

I think the federal government must do more to enforce our borders and prevent people from running into canada to escape Trumps America. This is getting ridiculous, I don't even like Trump but he's certainly not the New Hitler. These people will survive.

It's not Canada's responsibility to accept all of the worlds refugees and displaced individuals, the poverty rate in this country is 13% and income inequality is rising rapidly, we should fix our own problems before trying to fix the worlds problems.

Exactly! How smart is it for a country to allow people to walk across the border bypassing legal border crossing points and claim some sort of asylum jumping the queue of real people in need trying to come to Canada through legal means, those deserving as actual refugees and asylum seekers.

The press in Winnipeg were calling these illegal immigrants "refugee's" up until a week ago when they realized those living in the US and then coming here were far from that. The new name for these illegals is ''asylum seekers"

Manitoba is a preferred choice for the illegal crossings because Manitoba pays legal aid for these illegal immigrants something other provinces don't do. Manitoba can afford to pay legal fee's because we are such a rich province, only $30 Billion in debt. with another $1 billion dollar deficit this year and recipients of the generosity of the federal govt. with $2 Billion in annual transfer payments! But yeah in the naive generosity that is being exploited lets pay the legal costs for non-citizens who have never contributed a dime to Canada!

And the USA isn't in the middle of a civil war, it is a safe country. If they leave for Canada from a neighbouring safe country they are not refugees. They are economic migrants, and illegal. Send them all back.

No one is arguing that the US is, itself, unsafe. However, refugees - especially those from the countries targeted by the infamous executive order - do have legitimate concerns about how thorough or fair their hearing would be in the States. Without being able to access a lawyer or, in some cases, translation for the process, it is likely that they won't get a fair shake. As a consequence of that, they will likely get sent to persecution or death.

Our system here is far from perfect, but it does a much better job at accurately evaluating refugee cases.

Put yourself in the shoes of someone escaping the death in your home country because of your skin colour, sexual orientation, political views, etc. You arrive in a country where you have to argue your case in a legal system you don't know in a language you hardly speak. And if you don't manage to do that, you will get sent right back into the hands of a government which wants to kill you.
Now imagine that there's a country just across the border in which you will get the ressources to properly argue your case. I know that I'd cross that border.

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I've always struggled with reality. And I'm pleased to say that I won.

The press in Winnipeg were calling these illegal immigrants "refugee's" up until a week ago when they realized those living in the US and then coming here were far from that. The new name for these illegals is ''asylum seekers"

In Canadian legalese:

Asylum seeker = A person seeking refugee status, but has not had a hearing to confirm their case.

Refugee = An asylum-seeker whose case has been confirmed and has been granted refugee status.

Calling an asylum-seeker 'refugee' is common in everyday language, but is legally inaccurate. It's not a conspiracy.

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I've always struggled with reality. And I'm pleased to say that I won.

Although i think that the stca has to be amended to end irregular border crossings - they're less safe for the people crossing, less safe for border communities and the improvised nature risks eroding popular support. People should be arriving at secure ports of entry for security screening and to file their applications in an orderly way.

Then, i think we'd need to make some modest investments to reduce waits and backlogs in the application and evaluation process. That means things like more temporary housing in cities like winnipeg, sherbrooke and montreal, and more judges and legal aid for fair and timely hearings. Currently, people often wait for years for a hearing, which is bad for them and bad for canada since eventual asylees can't support themselves until they get their status, and eventual non-asylees will spend years in canada before they're turned away. We need to get the processing time down to weeks, not years.

For those who are granted asylum, we need to insure that they have access to the training and ressources to integrate and quickly become productive members of society. That means things like more investment for things like employment training, as well as more societal links, such as sponsorship-type arrangements where people are put in contact with established canadians to help the newcomers integrate themselves into a social circle. As has been demonstrated in the past, sponsored refugees have better outcomes and can more quickly start supporting themselves compared to government-sponsored refugees.

No one is arguing that the US is, itself, unsafe. However, refugees - especially those from the countries targeted by the infamous executive order - do have legitimate concerns about how thorough or fair their hearing would be in the States. Without being able to access a lawyer or, in some cases, translation for the process, it is likely that they won't get a fair shake. As a consequence of that, they will likely get sent to persecution or death.

Our system here is far from perfect, but it does a much better job at accurately evaluating refugee cases.

Put yourself in the shoes of someone escaping the death in your home country because of your skin colour, sexual orientation, political views, etc. You arrive in a country where you have to argue your case in a legal system you don't know in a language you hardly speak. And if you don't manage to do that, you will get sent right back into the hands of a government which wants to kill you.
Now imagine that there's a country just across the border in which you will get the ressources to properly argue your case. I know that I'd cross that border.

I can understand most of this, but I am pretty sure that interpreters are almost always available to asylum seekers in the U.S., even if they may not be offered by public authorities. Activist groups stateside are extremely well organized. There are lots of people and organizations willing to help asylum seekers (and even illegal immigrants) down there.

The current system rewards people for breaking the law and we either choose to let all assylum seekers make a claim or refuse all based on illegal entry. That's limiting.

I say scrap the STCA, enforce illegal entry laws that disqualify anyone who does not enter legally and empower border protection agents to make some summary judgements such as refuse entry to people who cannot prove their identity or place of origin or even those from countries deemed safe (short list of democracies).

Asylum seeker = A person seeking refugee status, but has not had a hearing to confirm their case.

Refugee = An asylum-seeker whose case has been confirmed and has been granted refugee status.

Calling an asylum-seeker 'refugee' is common in everyday language, but is legally inaccurate. It's not a conspiracy.

Sorry but there really should be no excuse for calling someone either a refugee or asylum seeker when they are coming from the USA!!!

Anyone entering Canada through illegal means really is an illegal immigrant. Those entering Canada are breaking the law when they are sneaking in, what other laws are they willing to break once they get into Canada?

In my mind, they are illegal immigrants - no different than those who cross the Mexican border in the US. They may have already been illegally in the US, but two wrongs don't make a right...what about the legitimate refugees, immigrants and citizens?

You can't just kick people out. Bureaucracy is slow, and that is frustrating, but the system of paperwork is there to protect legitimate claimants, and once they're in the system they have the right to a fair shake.

So, in the reports I saw from the Quebec-NY border, it was stated that asylum seekers were brought to a government holding centre in the Montreal area pending the processing of their request.

Does anyone know if they have to remain there until a decision on their file is made? Or are they just fingerprinted and entered into the system and then released onto Canada's streets pending the hearing of their case? (In the latter case, I assume they'd have access to at least some social services, and their kids could go to school, no?)

In any event, from my recollection, the number of asylum seekers involved in crimes in Canada is fairly low. (Other than the "crime" of entering the country outside of normal immigration processes.)

This does not seem to be a significant problem for us, in spite of what some people say.

OTOH, it does seem to be more of a problem in Europe, although of course the total numbers there are much much higher than they are here.

There are bad apples in every bunch, and the bigger the bunch the more bad apples you get, generally.

Something to watch out for in case we get a surge of migrants on our borders.

I understand why people think that there shouldn't be any reason to want to flee to Canada if you made it to the US. In reality this is probably true.

But this is something that actually hits a bit close to home for me. My best friend's girlfriend is a refugee from Northern Iraq, and she has a fair amount of family in Michigan that are also refugees. They all feel very threatened at the moment, whether it's founded in reality or not. For the record almost everyone in this family is highly educated and staunchly atheist, although the average person on the street would simply recognize them as middle eastern. Not saying that is typical but there are reasons why people may not want to stay in the US given the political climate.

I agree with what Acajack said above about the system being able to handle this. We can (and should) re-evaluate if the situation changes. A handful of people coming over isn't really a "thing" yet.

My view is that the current Canadian system is fair, manageable and reasonably efficient.

Of course, if we get a huge flood of people coming across the American border, then all bets are off.

Although it may not occur in the immediate future, is this a chance that we as a country really want to take? Why not be proactive and put measures in place to prevent such an occurrence instead to being reactive (as is typical human nature) and only taking action when things get out of control?

I understand why people think that there shouldn't be any reason to want to flee to Canada if you made it to the US. In reality this is probably true.

But this is something that actually hits a bit close to home for me. My best friend's girlfriend is a refugee from Northern Iraq, and she has a fair amount of family in Michigan that are also refugees. They all feel very threatened at the moment, whether it's founded in reality or not. For the record almost everyone in this family is highly educated and staunchly atheist, although the average person on the street would simply recognize them as middle eastern. Not saying that is typical but there are reasons why people may not want to stay in the US given the political climate.

I agree with what Acajack said above about the system being able to handle this. We can (and should) re-evaluate if the situation changes. A handful of people coming over isn't really a "thing" yet.

Although it may not occur in the immediate future, is this a chance that we as a country really want to take? Why not be proactive and put measures in place to prevent such an occurrence instead to being reactive and only taking action when things get out of control?

It may be hard to have any effective way to prevent irregular border crossings. Heck, even if we were to put 2% GDP towards a mega Canada-US wall, people could still just fly to Canada via a third country like Jamaica or Mexico. As for legal measures, I can't think of any way of preventing people from asking for asylum which would survive either a Charter challenge or a test by our international commitments.

I don't think that there's any reasonable way we can stop this any more than we can stop spring. The best we can do is to be prepared so that we can deal with people securely, efficiently and orderly.

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I've always struggled with reality. And I'm pleased to say that I won.

Yeah, if 500,000 people currently spread out all over the U.S. decide they're going to show up at the Canadian border over the next few months and demand asylum, there is little we can do to prevent this.

I know in Europe at one point they tried messaging that said "do not come - you will be turned away and have no chance of staying".

Not sure how effective this was.

I guess only time will tell us how big the wave will be.

We can prep for larger numbers of refugee claimants (which I am sure Citizenship and Immigration Canada is already doing to some degree) but such preparations can also be a waste of resources if people don't show up.

These are not refugees, folks. These are people arriving from a first world country because the leader of said country says he doesn't like them and they shouldn't be there; that does not equate to persecution. Big difference between the two. There is no such thing as refugees from the United States.

I want to say this on facebook... I really do. But I feel as though I'll be lambasted